The Most Influential Craft Breweries in America

In the early days of craft beer—was that even a term yet?—brewers weren’t focused on changing the world. They weren’t dreaming of a time where Michelin-starred restaurants would have beer pairing menus; they weren’t thinking that eventually the President would have his own in-White House brewery; they weren’t imagining a time where they'd be treated like rockstars. They were simply trying to make this country a decent place to finally grab a pint.

“The beginnings of craft beer were really about recreating in the new world the classic old-world styles of beer,” Jim Koch of Boston Beer Co. told me. That’s why the first beers that propelled micro-brewing forward were a hopped-up pale ale, an all-malt Vienna lager, and a resurrected steam beer.

Of course, once the pioneers had begun laying the groundwork for the industry in the 1970s and 1980s, once these influencers had inspired others to hang up their own brewery shingles, once 92 breweries in 1980 had ballooned to over 1000 by 1996—only then was it time to truly revolutionize the beer of the old world.

Barrel-aging!Over-hopping!Punching through the alcohol clouds!

Now that they’re ubiquitous, it’s hard to remember there was once a time where double IPAs, bourbon barrel-aged stouts, double-digit ABVs, and extremely flavorful beers simply didn’t exist. A time where some brewery helmed by some man or woman had to innovate and actually create these things, and thus change the entire industry forevermore.

The following are the American breweries that changed the landscape of beer not just stateside, but abroad too. They weren’t just innovative because they made “flavorful” beer—whatever that means—but rather because they had a profound impact in how people produce beer, purchase beer, drink beer, and think about beer. (Hell, they’re the reason I have a job writing about beer.)

Below are the 10 most influential American craft breweries of all time.

Anchor Brewing

The great-grandson of a home appliances magnate and the son of an Iowa dairy farmer, Fritz Maytag was intrigued upon hearing the 69-year-old Anchor Brewing Company was facing closure and thus up for sale in 1965. He purchased it for just a few thousand bucks. Upon taking over the company, he immediately decided to focus on raising the quality—a hallmark of the Maytag family whether it came to washing machines or bleu cheese. He likewise risked most of his inheritance on expanding production and distribution. Altering the recipe and brewing processes for their iconic, trademarked Steam Beer—along with creating Liberty Ale, the first modern American IPA—Anchor is generally credited with kick-starting the craft beer movement. In 2008, Maytag won a James Beard Foundation lifetime achievement honor, and in 2010 sold the brewery to its current owners.

New Albion Brewing Co.

Image via Sam Adams

Where: Sonoma, CAOpened: 1976Influence: Being the first ever microbrewery

Jack McAuliffe was a homebrewer in an era when that was a weird (if not, illegal) thing to do. He’d been inspired by the beers produced at Maytag’s revived Anchor Brewing in nearby San Francisco. Since it was too expensive for him to open his own brewery in San Francisco proper, he headed north to Sonoma, where a locavore food and wine scene was already emerging. He named his brewery New Albion after what explorer Francis Drake had called the Bay Area upon discovering it; his brewery would likewise be a “new world” to beer drinkers. From the get-go, the brewery produced an unpasteurized pale ale, stout, and barleywine—all oddball offerings for the time, and certainly most drinkers’ first ever experiences with these “craft” styles. That was enough for the brewery’s legend to quickly spread, though not enough to make a profit, and New Albion closed its doors in 1982. Its influence, however, directly inspired Ken Grossman (Sierra Nevada) and Jim Koch (Boston Beer Company) to open their own breweries shortly thereafter. The so-called “most important failed brewery in the industry’s history” had its name acquired by Koch in 2010, who eventually released a New Albion Ale in tribute before graciously transferring the brand assets back to McAuliffe.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

Image via Sierra Nevada

Where: Chico, CAOpened: 1979Influence: Teaching the world to love hops

Another homebrewer from California, Ken Grossman took McAuliffe’s game plan and made it profitable. Insanely profitable. The beer Grossman chose to drive his business seemed strange at the time—a highly-hopped pale ale. In many cases, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (SNPA) would not just be the first pale ale most Americans would ever drink, it would also be their first taste of bitter Cascade hops. Essentially selling it door-to-door in those early years, these days Grossman is a bonafide billionaire, and Sierra Nevada is the seventh largest brewery in America (including the macros), with a satellite brewery in North Carolina. As for SNPA, the thirtysomething-year-oldbeer is hardly passé, even today. Its cult status is still strong, making it “the Illmatic of craft beer—a ground-breaking classic that never lost its luster with age.” Today, SNPA is available in all 50 states and abroad, is the 2nd-best-selling craft beer around, and is the forefather for all the hop bombs that currently dominate the conversation.

Boston Beer Company

Image via Sam Adams

Where: Boston, MAOpened: 1984Influence: Making craft beer mainstream

A Harvard grad times three with a good job as a manufacturing consult, Jim Koch simply couldn’t get the thought of beer out of his mind. No surprise, as he had six generation of brewers in his family tree. Reviving an old family recipe, Koch was selling Samuel Adams Boston Lager within the city by the mid-80s. More so than being a quality, all-malt lager during a “less filling, tastes great” lite beer era, it was Koch’s extreme salesmanship and innovative marketing that soon turned his little brewery into a powerhouse. By the 1990s, Boston Lager (and other Sam staples) were often the only craft beers available at restaurants, mid-tier bars, sporting events, concerts, and airports—a life raft of “good” beer for would-be connoisseurs drowning in a sea of swill. Less admired by geeks has been Boston Beer’s expansion into hard cider (Angry Orchard), malt beverages (Twisted Tea), and even alcoholic seltzer (Spiked & Sparkling)—unacclaimed products, though proof there’s a lot of money to be made by craft breweries looking to expand their portfolios.

Goose Island Brewery

Goose Island was nothing more than a nice, humble brewpub in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood when, in 1992 (or was it actually 1995?) brewer Greg Hall decided to age an imperial stout in used Jim Beam barrels. That simple act, and the resulting beer, Bourbon County Brand Stout, would change the higher-end potential of the industry. Today, most all breweries age certain beers in former spirits barrels, typically whiskey. The success of Bourbon County and other beers turned the brewery into a powerhouse. In 2011, Goose Island was sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) for what now seems like a steal of $38 million. Since then, countless other craft breweries have been acquired by ABI, MillerCoors, Heineken, Duvel Moortgat, and Corona’s Constellation Brands, who paid a whopping $1 billion for Ballast Point in late 2015.

Blind Pig Brewing Co./Russian River Brewing Co.

If you're wondering why two breweries get this one slot it’s because of one man: Vinnie Cilurzo. As the brewmaster at Blind Pig, Cilurzo first had the idea to overwhelm a beer with big, bold hops (mainly because his crude equipment was prone to off-flavors). That self-described “double IPA” would be called Inaugural Ale and mostly forgotten in industry history. It was only when Cilurzo took over Russian River Brewing, though, that his double IPAs like Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger began to truly influence the beer industry, and bring us to the point where IPAs are now “the” craft beer style. Russian River also deserves credit for using local wine barrels to age sour beers, something now quite common.

Sandlot Brewery

Image via Blue Moon

Where: Denver, COOpened: 1995Influence: Making craft beer commercial

If you’re a pedant, you immediately call foul at me for including Sandlot Brewery. You see, Sandlot—an ostensible nano-brewery located in Coors Field—is actually owned by, well, MillerCoors. Still, when they opened this R&D brewery in the mid-’90s and handed the keys to Keith Villa, they surely didn’t realize he would soon produce the beer that would loudly announce the macro-breweries foray into micro. Bellyslide Belgian White, as it was originally called, was a beer inspired by Belgian wits and, quite frankly, dumbed down a bit. Sweet and fruity, it was a flavorful alternative to macro consumers still scared of the hoppy and “dark” beers that dominated microbrewing at the time. Serving Blue Moon, as it came to be called, with its signature orange peel made it all the more unassuming and unpretentious—it’s now the top-selling craft beer in America if you consider it such. For a more legitimate “accessible” craft beer that deeply influenced the industry, we could instead look toward Allagash White, also a Belgian wit released in 1995, that is a lot better of offering.

Dogfish Head Brewery

By now, it's becoming a running joke (or insult, depending how you look at things) that craft beer is simply beer with a ton of shit in it. Whether you call these beers “culinary” or “adjunct,” today most breweries offer beers made with coffee, vanilla, chocolate, maple syrup, peppers, and pretty much anything else you can dream of. But this “extreme” beer movement first started getting traction thanks to some self-proclaimed heretics from Delaware. Right from the get go, Sam Calagione’s brewery was producing beers utilizing apricots and peaches, algae, Ethiopian honey, grapes and berries, herbs and spices, and even boiled lobsters. He wasn't just throwing these ingredients in willy-nilly though. Beers like Raison D'Extra and Sah'tea actually displayed innovative flavor profiles thanks to Calagione's deft touch. Such is Dogfish Head’s "foodie" influence that last year, a culinary brewpub Band of Bohemia was awarded a Michelin star.

Three Floyds Brewing

Where: Munster, INOpened: 1996Influence: Making people wait in line for rare beer

Before, oh, the mid-aughts, buying beer—even good beer—was pretty easy. All you did was head to the store. That all started to change when Chicagoland brewery Three Floyds decided to release their adjunct-laden imperial stout, Dark Lord, in limited numbers at a ticketed event called Dark Lord Day in 2004. Over a decade later, Dark Lord Day draws thousands of beer geeks each and every year, while countless other breweries have also jumped on the rarity release bandwagon. Whether that’s Cigar City Hunahpu’s Day in Tampa, Surly Darkness Day in Minnesota, Perennial Abraxas Day in St. Louis, or the recent Toppling Goliath KBBS release in Decorah, Iowa, pretty much every weekend in America rare beer is being queued up for.

The Alchemist

Believe it or not, The Alchemist existed for nearly a decade without really influencing a damn thing. For most of the aughts, they were simply a nice, local Vermont brewpub making nice, local beers of any and every style. That all changed in 2012 when they began canning their most celebrated beer, Heady Topper. It was the only beer they canned in fact. Soon, lines were a constant at the brewery, and “Heady” had become the #1-ranked beer in the world. Whether or not Heady Topper was the first New England-style IPA is debateable. What’s not is that today, the most potent currency in the beer industry are super juicy, fruity and hazy, unfiltered IPAs in 16-ounce cans, usually sold directly from the brewery within hours of coming out of the tanks—just like Heady still is.

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